


Young Rogues

by Noblehunter



Series: Chaos Theory [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Robin (Comics)
Genre: Fear gas, Gen, Heavily Implied Child Abuse, Kidnapping, Murder, attempting mugging, c-word, shameless borrowing from Return of the Joker
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:00:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27156268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noblehunter/pseuds/Noblehunter
Summary: When the Joker is killed by his "son" Joker Junior, Batman orders his Robins to look into other teen-aged rogues while he tracks down the vanished Junior. The Young Rogues decide also decide to find Joker Junior to save him from Batman and Arkham Asylum.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Damian Wayne
Series: Chaos Theory [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1982230
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13





	Young Rogues

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to my betas and the other hooligans of Chaos Theory.
> 
> This is a WIP so read at your own risk.

Only three lights hanging from the ceiling provided illumination in the decaying building located close to the abandoned tourist attraction of Amusement Mile. One of the pale circles of light centered on a man tied to a chair. He was white, with well-groomed brown hair and clean-shaven. The tailored blue suit showed a trim figure slowly going soft. It was ruined now, torn in three places, and stained with flecks of blood. His hands were tied behind the back of the chair and ropes around his chest and legs held him tight. 

Another light shone down on a man and a boy. The man’s white face and fixed grin identified him as one of Gotham’s most infamous residents. The Joker wore his usual purple suit and had an arm around the boy who was perhaps nine-years-old. He wore a school uniform that had not been washed in some time. The boy was crying quietly even as his eyes were wide with terror. His hands were shaking. He resembled the man tied to the chair, faces nearly identical save the roundness of youth and the distortions of terror. 

The final circle of light held a gangly boy of thirteen.. He was skinny beyond the demands of an early growth spurt. The bones of his arms and legs were spindly in his tight-fitted purple suit. His white face and shadowed eyes further made him an unsettling mockery of the human form. His grin was as broad and as fixed as the Joker’s. He rarely blinked. 

In his hand, he held a gun. It had an absurdly large barrel. If it was anything but a prop for a gag, it would break the wrist of anyone who fired it. It pointed unwaveringly at the man in the chair. He appeared to be waiting for something. The man stared at him with pleading eyes. This earned a look of restrained glee on the older boy’s face. 

“Alright now, Junior,” the Joker said. “It’s time for your big moment! Just pull the trigger and you can have your little brother. You’ll have someone to play with all the time! Won’t that be fun!”

Junior hesitated. The pause stretched out and the Joker’s grin became a grimace. The gun did not move from its appointed target but Junior did not fire. 

“Come on, you’re spoiling the fun,” the Joker snarled. “Hurry it up! I don’t have all day.”

The click of the trigger echoed throughout the room. The young boy beside the Joker screamed. The man tied to the chair pissed himself. A mini flagpole extended from the barrel of the gun, a flag reading “Bang!” unrolled. The Joker howled with laughter. 

“Gotcha!” he screamed. “The old flag gun gag. Sometimes the classics are the best.”

Junior he turned it to the side to more closely inspect the barrel. The flagpole was firmly attached to the gun and wouldn’t come out. He lowered the gun, but kept it pointed in the direction of the man tied to the chair. 

“But seriously,” the Joker said, wiping tears from his eyes. His voice dropped into a low growl. “Finish the job.”

There was no hesitation this time. Junior raised the gun, twisted to aim it at the Joker and fired. Junior’s laughter filled the room from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. It was the high-ptiched hysterical laughter of a child who knows he’s broken a rule and is laughing to delay the consequences. The pole embedded itself in the Joker’s chest and he collapsed backwards. He wasn’t laughing anymore. 

He said, “That wasn’t funny. That wasn’t funny at—” and died. 

By the time broken glass rained down from the ceiling, heralding the arrival of Batman, Joker Junior was long gone. 

———

Damian Al Ghul-Wayne was perched atop an immense filing cabinet filled with back ups and old files. His father was still reviewing some dataon the bat-computer. Once Drake finally arrived the briefing could begin. Drake and Damian being in the same room wasn’t the recipe for disaster it had been a few years ago. 

Spending most of a day together in a small room waiting for the tide to come in and drown them did a lot to smooth off the rough edges. It was easier to get along with someone when you’d said what you thought would be your final words to them. 

He wondered why his father was bothering with briefing him and Drake. Surely for something as significant as Joker's death, Father would want to take charge with both his Robins in attendance. There was no need for a Robin specific briefing. They needed orders, not background information. Father continued to confuse Damian even after all this time.

"What's up, Bruce?" Drake said, jogging over from the stairs from the manor. "When are we heading out?"

"We're not," Father said. "You two will be pursuing a separate case. I won't need your assistance with Joker Junior. But this incident has highlighted just how dangerous young people caught up with the Rogues can be." He handed Damian and Drake multiple dossiers. "This contains all the information we have on teenagers operating as rogues in Gotham. Specifically, I want you to track down Puffin and Rime, see what they're up to and if they pose a threat. Establish the identity or identities of Corvid. We have less data on the individuals associated with Poison Ivy and Bane. You will correct that.”

“Sure thing,” Drake said. “And if we run across Joker Junior?”

“Bring him back to the cave for treatment.”

Damian exchanged a look with Drake. It seemed they were both in accordance that treatment was likely a euphemism. Given the amount of reprogramming and recovery that would likely be required, Father will have thoroughly bonded with Joker Junior by the time he was able to function normally. If he was ever able to function normally. Damian was well aware of how his own upbringing made his life difficult and painful. Whatever Joker Junior had suffered would undoubtedly be worse. At least there had been a purpose to Damian’s torture.

“Would it not be more efficient for us to concentrate on Joker Junior and then on these other children?” Damian asked, as if those children weren’t his age or older. 

Father shook his head. “We don’t have enough information on his whereabouts to make use of the additional manpower. We need to get as much data on these younger rogues while we can. Gotham is quiet right now and I don’t want them to be unknown variables in the next crisis.”

Damian nodded in acceptance although he vowed to seek out Joker Junior if the opportunity ever arose. Father was being unreasonably cautious again. Perhaps out of the belief that his Robins would be compromised by the target’s youth. Damian did not have to put up with that. 

“It’s also likely they will seek out Joker Junior as well. They could easily feel some kinship with him. They may even empathize with his decision to kill his... father.”

“I think everyone empathizes with his decision to kill the Joker,” Drake put in. 

“Thank you for being specific,” Father said dryly. 

“Do I look like Jason?” Drake said glibly. 

There was a moment of icy silence. Damian restrained a wince. Drake could be awfully tactless. 

“No,” Father said eventually. 

“Sorry,” Drake said. 

“I have to go.” Father was at his most Batman even without the cowl. “Joker Junior has only briefly been seen by the surveillance camera network. I need to see if he left any kind of trail.” With a flare of his cape, he stalked towards the batmobile. 

Once Father was plausibly out of earshot, Damian turned to Drake. “Perhaps you should reflect on what you say before you say it,” he said in his best Grayson voice. 

“Get bent,” Drake said without heat. 

Damian let a moment pass just to make Drake uncertain if he would continue baiting him, then said, “Shall we pursue Puffin and Rime first? Since we have actual intelligence on them.”

— — —

Aloysius “Al” Jeremiah Cobblepot was on his way home from school when something in the storefront he was passing by caught his attention. The store was one of the few in Gotham that still kept an array of TVs showing the news. The window was streaked where it had been indifferently cleaned. He could still see the flashing alert of breaking news. 

“Hey, what’s this?” he said and stopped to watch. 

His friend, Edgar Barnaby Crane, wore a trench coat despite the heat and a blue and silver mask with a long beak. Al and Barnaby had been best friends since freshman year, bonding over being the children of notorious supervillains. Their school was surprisingly tolerant of their idiosyncrasies. It was probably due to its status as the unofficial school for Gotham's Mafia and other criminal groups. No one wanted to attract Penguin or Scarecrow's attention by expelling their sons for dress code violations.

Barnaby turned to see what Al was looking at. The store’s glass door was open to capture the laughable Gotham breeze,also allowing the audio accompanying the news to drift out the door.

“Police Commissioner Gordan has confirmed the rumours swirling about Gotham.”

The next sentence was lost in a whoop of joy from a nearby businesswoman who apparently had a few seconds lead on the TV. The scrawl of “The Joker Dead!” which filled the bottom quarter of the screen neatly explained her elation. Al and Barnaby shared a look to confirm each other’s skepticism. 

The news anchor’s voice broke through as the shouts subsided to excited conversation. “The body was reportedly found late last night by the police acting on an anonymous tip.” Which usually meant a vigilante. “The cause of death has not been released. However, the police did confirm that none of Gotham's masked vigilantes were involved. Commissioner Gordon has asked all citizens to be on the lookout for the individual known as Joker Junior. If you see him, please contact the police immediately and do not approach. He is extremely dangerous."

Al snorted. “Any Gothamite stupid enough to approach Joker Junior deserves what they get.”

“You’re heartless,”Barnaby said. 

"It's true."

"You aren't supposed to say it though." Barnaby laughed. 

They turned away from the store and continued down the street, dodging groups of pedestrians who were laughing and dancing. It all seemed a bit macabre but the boys were feeling pretty good about it, too. No one liked the Joker and no one had been safe from him. Even Gotham’s other rogues would be celebrating the death of the Clown Prince of Crime. 

“Do you think the Bat did it?” Al asked. “I mean if anyone could make it look like an accident, it’s him.”

“Nah,” Barnaby said. “If the Bat did snap, he wouldn’t stop with Joker.”

There was a long pause of unsettled silence as they both absorbed their complex reactions to the idea of Batman killing their fathers. The thought that either of them could be on the list of a homicidal Batman never occurred to them. 

They turned off the neighbourhood’s main street and headed for one of the mostly abandoned areas that plagued the poorer parts of Gotham. Storefronts and food joints gave way to broken windows and empty doorways. The crowd did not follow them. No one loitered on these streets if they could help it. Not unless they were hunting. 

“Well what do we have here?” A pair of excessively ragged men stepped out from an alleyway in front of them. 

“Looks like a pair of lost lambs,” came a voice from behind them. “I think we’ll need to make sure they get home safe, for a fee of course.”

Al knew that forming judgements based on a person’s accent was a tool of the wealthy to oppress and divide the working class. He still couldn’t help from noticing that these men spoke with Gotham’s distinctive gutter-trash accent, so loaded with stupidity they’d probably been kicked out of every gang they tried to join. He knew he should try educating them or at least suggest they pick a safer class of prey but it didn’t feel like it was worth the effort. 

“Don’t you fuckheads know who we are?” Al’s own accent thickened. “I get that I could be any ponce in a nice outfit but Barnaby here is a bit more distinctive.”

“Where do you get off callin’ us fuckheads?” the one on the left said. “I don’t think we care who you are.”

“Are you fucking kidding?” Al shot back. “It’s Gotham fucking City and you don’t care who the guy dressed up as a plague doctor is. Why don’t you go crawl back into the hole you came out of and we won’t hold no grudges for your impertinence.”

“You can’t talk to us like that,” the spokesthug snarled. “You’re just some dumbass kids playing dress up in the wrong part of town. Just give us your money, your phones, and anything else you’ve got worth taking and we’ll only break a few of your bones.”

Al pulled a knife from one of his hidden sheathes. “Just fuck off and I won’t cut your throat.”

The men in front of them, and doubtless any behind, pulled out knives of their own. Three on two was bad odds, especially since Barnaby might or might not be able to fight. Al was no Robin. If they did actually fight, he was probably going to get cut up. He tried to slow his racing thoughts. He really should talk his way out of this. 

“Stupid cunt,” the thug on the left said. 

A hand on his shoulder stopped Al’s berserker charge before it got going. He glanced up at Barnaby and shivered. The eyes behind the mask were distant and calculating. His friend wasn’t home right now. 

“Gentleman,” Barnaby spoke with his father’s educated and cultured accent. “Before we start brawling, I have a question for you. What are you afraid of?”

Barnaby stepped forward and did something with his coat to make himself look larger. It flared around him, creating a shapeless silhouette. Despite standing on a street drenched in mid-afternoon sun, he evoked the feeling of Gotham in the middle of the night, when the shadows swallowed all but the strongest light. Al was a little creeped out by this, even as he positioned himself to cover his friend’s back. Looks like he didn’t have to worry about Barnaby going catatonic. Too bad this was worse. 

Before their would-be muggers could react to Barnaby’s odd pronouncement, he flung two glass vials at the men and front before turning to fling one at the lone man behind them. They shattered on contact and soon all three were coughing. Barnaby rushed the two in front with an unsettlingly liquid motion. 

“Don’t worry,” his voice fell to a deep rasp that made Al’s skin prickle. “You have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Barnaby’s laughter echoed off the abandoned buildings. 

The two men screamed and fell backwards. As soon as they hit the ground, they turned over and began crawling away, whimpering. The man behind them bolted. Al considered hoping he didn’t run into traffic but decided against it. The fuckheads had upset Barnaby. 

“Hey, Barnaby,” Al said softly. He stayed where he was to make sure he didn’t walk into any lingering fear gas. “You back with me?”

Even though Al expected the lurid red light shining out of Barnaby’s mask, he still started when his friend turned to face him. The bird mask stared down at him for a long moment, unseeing. The red lights went out and Al could see his friend’s eyes again. 

“Yeah, I’m here,” Barnaby said hoarsely. “You okay?” 

“Me? I’m not the one who went all...” Instead of saying it, he made a swooping gesture with his hands. 

“I’m fine, it was nothing.” Barnaby reached out to take Al’s arm. “Come on, let’s cross the street to avoid the gas and get home. I’m tired.”

Al let himself be led across the street. He ignored the two men crying and crawling towards the alley they’d come out of. They had gotten what they deserved. 

They made it home without further incident. Home being an abandoned apartment that Penguin had furnished as a hide out before his recent, and very public, falling out with Al. The place to stay was a sort of apology for the political necessity of kicking his son out. It turns out that robbing a Mafia bank with your best friend and a pack of your dad’s stooges had consequences. Who knew? 

The apartment had power and was kitted out to suit the crime lord in exile it had been supposed to house. Al still contemplated how many people could be fed with what it had cost to furnish this place. The way his father had always hoarded his wealth was disgusting. Al was still working on contacts to funnel his take from the bank robberies into mutual support organizations, food banks, and housing supports but as soon as he did, this place was going from five stars to a half star. Zero stars, considering the running water stopped two floors down. 

By the time Al made it through the front door—that last flight of stairs was always murder on what was left of his legs, as his prosthetics sacrificed comfort for combat utility—Barnaby had taken off his mask and coat and was staring out the window. It had taken some doing to train Barnaby out of trying to help him up the stairs, including making good on his threat to bite any hand offering to help. Al refused to be treated like a cripple or an invalid. The downside was that Barnaby could disappear into his own head while Al struggled up the fucking stairs. Penguin probably given them an 8th floor apartment on purpose. Asshole. 

Barnaby’s lips were moving as he silently recited something that Al was happier not knowing what it was. He considered his next move carefully. He had to pull Barnaby out of whatever spiral he’d fallen into but anything too abrupt risked him getting a face-full of fear gas. That it also gave him a chance to study his friend’s face was a coincidence. Barnaby took strongly after his mother who must have been pretty indeed. His round face, brown skin and innocent brown eyes were almost always hidden away by a mask. Al was a bad friend for wishing he had more chances to enjoy how cute his friend was. It was so rare for him to get a chance to just look. Even if the thousand-yard-stare was less endearing than Barnaby’s usual worried look. It was still nice to see how Barnaby’s short curly hair complemented his face instead of a bird mask. 

Face warming, Al reminded himself that he had a job to do. “How do you think he’s doing?” he asked, deliberately unclear. Under normal circumstances, he and Barnaby were usually on the same wavelength that Barnaby could follow such questions. Now, it should be enough of a riddle to catch his attention. 

“Who?” Barnaby asked, turning to face Al but not focusing on him. 

“Joker Junior,” Al explained, keeping his tone casual. 

It took awhile for the information to penetrate Barnaby’s near-fugue. “Joker Junior? Why?” 

Al shrugged, not sure where to go from here. “Joker’s dead and Junior’s in the wind. We know how much it sucks to have a parent taken away.”

Barnaby’s eyes refocused and he looked at Al. “I think he’d be relieved to have Joker gone. He’d have to be the worst parent ever.”

“Yeah, but where would we be if dad hadn’t lined this place up? And Junior’s just a kid.”

“What are you suggesting?” The last trace of distant vagueness disappeared from Barnaby’s gaze. 

Al hadn’t been going to suggest anything. Now that Barnaby had asked the question, he couldn’t make himself brush it aside. “We should try and find him. Give him a place to stay.” 

“Are you nuts?” Barnaby hissed. “I mean more than usual?”

Al bared his teeth at the jibe. “Fuck you. I just think we shouldn’t leave him alone on the streets.”

“He’s got to be crazier than I am. How do you propose to keep him from killing us?” 

Fuck, arguing with Barnaby with his mask off was painful. His eyes were so much more expressive. It was all Al could do to keep from melting. He rallied his reserves. He wouldn’t be undone by a pair of pretty eyes. 

“Handcuffs?” he suggested. Encouraged by the twitch of Barnaby’s lips, he went on. “Teething ring and a straight jacket? Chew toys and a scratching post? A crate and a water dish?” 

“He’s a ten-year-old, not a dog,” Barnaby said, smiling. 

Al tried not to revel in that smile. Something must have shown in his expression though, because Barnaby grabbed his mask and put it back on. Al was very careful not to look disappointed. 

“We can handle him though,” Al said, knowing that he was too invested in what had been just a topic to distract Barnaby. “He’s just a ten-year-old. We’ll be fine as long as we don’t turn our backs on him.”

“This is a bad idea. I want that written on my tombstone. Here lies Barnaby, a genius, except when he listened to his best friend.”

Al smiled. “You got it.”

“So how are we going to find him?” 

“Don’t worry, I know a guy.”

— — —

Jack Fries stared at his monitor in frustration. The simulation was crashing after a few iterations. It shouldn’t be doing that. Baring his teeth, he went through the error log again trying to find where the code was going wrong. At this point, he’d normally go online to see if anyone else ran into this problem. Except no one apart from a certain pharmaceutical company was supposed to have this model. Even related questions could be dangerous. So going online was out. The Bats had some really freaky web crawlers. He could deal with cops; the Batman was something else entirely. 

He ran a hand through his hair. It was brittle in the cold but didn’t break or fall out which was a small comfort. His dad had lost all of his hair shortly after their accident. He wondered if Da— _ Victor,  _ held that against his son. Jack didn’t remember his father being particularly vain. But then again, maybe even the  _ least  _ vain man would be upset at turning blue and going bald. Jack got the blue and the sub-zero body temperature from their accident, which hadn’t protected him from Victor’s anger. 

Wool gathering wasn’t helping him figure out this simulation. Maybe there was some copy protection he hadn’t gotten rid of. Goddamn corporations, hoarding their medical knowledge to make a quick buck. If everyone had this model, maybe he wouldn’t have to graft it on to a jury-rigged simulation to see if their innovation could help save his mom. He was just a fucking teenager, why was it up to him? He hadn't even finished high school. He squashed the old bitterness and refocused his attention. 

He was three thousand lines of code in when his alarm system beeped at him. He glanced over at the monitors for his video feeds. They showed Puffin and Corvid strolling up the warehouse that held the freezer he’d turned into a lair. He bookmarked where he was in the code then got up to put his suit on. He grumbled to himself while he did up the connections for his air and environmental conditioning. Why had he shown that punk, knock-off mobster where he lived anyways? It wasn’t because of how Puffin had smiled at him when he suggested he might be able to do Jack a favour. Jack didn’t care about how guys smiled. He secured his helmet and took comfort in the very real barrier between him and his incoming guests. 

They knocked on the sliding door of his freezer turned apartment/lair. Jack took a moment to answer, hoping that they’d leave. They only knocked again. The servos of his suit whined as he cracked the seals and opened the door just a few inches. 

“Can I help you two?” his suit made his voice harsh and metallic. Corvid actually flinched. 

“I was wondering if you could do us a favour?” Puffin wheedled. 

“No.” 

“Don’t be like that, Rime.” Puffin pouted. At least he only knew Jack by his code name. “We just need to take a look at some surveillance cameras. You can hack your way in no problem.”

“Please,” Corvid said. His voice was just as flat as Jack's but still sounded concerned. “We need to find Joker Junior before the cops or the Bats do.”

Jack stared at Corvid’s bird mask. That was not what he was expecting. Corvid seemed as earnest as always. Puffin sounded like he was running a scam, per usual. 

“Why?” Jack asked. Frost formed on the top of his helmet, he had treated the sides of his glass helmet to keep them from fogging up, but he rather liked the effect of just the top frosting over. 

“We want to give him a place to stay,” Puffin said. “Gotham’s no place for a ten-year-old on his own; even that ten-year-old.”

“We all know what it’s like not to have parents,” Corvid added quietly. 

“But not because we shot them,” Jack pointed out. 

“What?” 

“You didn’t see the police reports?” Jack thought either one of them would be able to find one of the backdoors infesting the GCPD computer system. “Witnesses say Junior shot the Joker instead of one of his victims.”

“Holy shit,” Puffin breathed. “I mean, we’ve all thought about it but I guess only the kid was crazy enough to do it.”

There was something about the angle of Corvid’s head that suggested he was as disturbed as Jack was by that suggestion. He’d never thought about shooting Victor. It was bad enough he had to take the lead on trying to cure mom. He was fine with Victor cooling his heels in Arkham. Maybe life with Penguin had been even worse than living with Victor. 

“You still want to find him?” Jack asked.

“Sure,” Puffin said carelessly. “It’s not like that’ll make him any more crazy.”

“Ableist much?” Corvid said quietly. Enough so that Jack wouldn’t have heard the comment without the aid of his suit’s microphone.

“Whatever, I can’t help you,” Jack said, realizing he wouldn’t win, especially if he got dragged into an argument over whether or not they should help Junior. “Even if I could hack the surveillance network without being spotted—and I can’t—the Bats will see anything before we do. At best we’ll be one step behind them.” 

“The Bats won’t have us looking,” Puffin declared. 

"Bullshit," Jack said. "What do we know that they don't?"

"I have an extensive network of informants."

"Puffin," Corvid said warningly. 

"What? I know people who know things."

"Yeah, and that'll help you find someone that the bats can't." The voice modulator on his suit stripped most of his sarcasm out, but not all of it.

"It might. Do you have any better ideas?" Puffin demanded. 

"I don't need any better ideas," Jack retorted. "I'm not going out to look for a murder baby."

"So you're just going to leave him to Batman?" Corvid asked.

"Him and anyone else dumb enough to get the Bats’ attention."

"You're as much of a scaredy cat as Corvid, here," Puffin sneered.

"Hey!" Corvid turned to probably glare at Puffin.

"What?"

"You shouldn't just say it like that." 

"I'll just leave you two to your squabbles." Jack closed the door on them.

Not-quite quiet reigned as the door sealed away any protest the pair might make. The fans and refrigeration still hummed. Jack thought it must be something like living in space. That was less sad than remembering he’d cook his brain without constant cooling. 

He went back to the computer without taking his suit off. He might need to go out to chase the idiots off if they didn’t get the message. In case he did have to get up, he avoided the simulation code and instead pulled up a map of surveillance cameras in Gotham. It was safe enough to check. Civilians did access this site after all. 

Neither official nor legal, the site showed the location of every easily accessible camera in Gotham. Easy for anyone with basic hacking skills, at least. Most were installed by the government using a system so compromised, it was a miracle it actually worked. Of the rest, a majority were streams that were intentionally public. The last fraction were cameras planted deliberately to monitor rogues’ hideouts, criminal establishments, or whoever someone thought should have a camera pointed at them. Jack suspected the Bats had planted the oddly scattered cameras in Amusement Mile. Puffin was definitely responsible for the one pointing at the Iceberg Lounge. 

Jack stared at the map, hoping to find some solution to the problem of Joker Junior. It didn’t help that the map was incomplete. There were any number of private cameras or networks the Bats had probably infiltrated; it still gave a sense of where you had to be in Gotham in order to avoid being spotted by the all-seeing eye. There were cameras all over the diamond district, of course. Anywhere with money had plenty of coverage. The poorer the neighbourhood, the fewer cameras. The East End had only patches. It was still enough to make it difficult to move through without showing up on camera. No, if Junior had made it out of Amusement Mile without being spotted, then he almost had to be in the Bowery. 

Jack picked up his phone and started to text Puffin and then put it down. He hadn’t agreed to help them find Junior. He didn’t have to tell them what he suspected. He could just get back to work and act like they’d never bothered him at all. 

A glance at the camera feeds showed Puffin and Corvid standing in front of his door, still arguing. Jack sighed. His suit made it sound like a dying synthesizer. He heaved himself out of his reinforced chair and clomped over to his door. 

“Are you two still here?” he said after sliding the door open again. 

They turned to stare at him. Jack couldn’t help but crack a smile at the look on Puffin’s face. Even Corvid’s mask seemed astonished. They turned back to each other but seemed at a loss for words. 

“If he hasn’t been spotted by the bats, he’ll probably be in the Bowery,” Jack said, putting them out of their misery. “The main net of cameras is pretty sparse there, so it’d be easier to get in there and hide. I don’t know if the bats have their own cameras there, but even if they do, it’s a big neighbourhood.”

“Great, we can go scope out the Bowery!” Puffin exclaimed, obnoxiously cheerful again. “You coming with?” 

Jack was ready to refuse. This wasn’t his business. It had nothing to do with his mom. He’d already given them a lead. He should shut the door on them again and get back to his code. Except then these two would go off into the Bowery alone. While they weren’t helpless, the Bowery had a lot of desperate people in it. Neither of them were intimidating enough to stop a fight if they weren’t recognized. But any Gothamite desperate enough to attack Jack in his suit was probably already dead. 

“Fine, but you owe me,” he grumbled at last, accepting that he’d talked himself into their mission. 

Puffin looked like he was going to object but Corvid shook his head. He might be a weird kid but he had some common-sense at least. 

“Welcome to the team,” Puffin said a little sourly. “Where do you wanna start?” 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, I hope you like it. If you want to hang out and talk Chaos Theory with me and the other genius behind it, [you can join us on the #chaos-theory-justice-with-a-bang channel on the Core Disaster Server.](https://discord.gg/cdbtHkJ%E2%80%9D)


End file.
